


Jungle Jazz, Nifty Nerf-herders, and Space Spies

by tafih



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7756414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tafih/pseuds/tafih
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicholas Wilde is a smuggler on the run. Judy Hopps is Interstellar Police Lieutenant with a secret. Well, now, they’re handcuffed together. (Sci-Fi/Cowboy Bebop AU!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Running Ragged with Rainforest Ragtime

**Author's Note:**

> Not an exact Cowboy Bebop AU but similar themes – let’s see how this goes :P  
> This was going to be a one-shot but I decided to make it a full-fledged fic on its own. Bottom line is that this is basically just WildeHopps in Space!  
> I highly recommend listening to the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack when reading or at least bebop jazz.  
> FYI, Judy is a little violent here but it wouldn't be a Cowboy Bebop AU without some feisty women who can kick butt, right?

  **Chapter 1: _Running Ragged with Rainforest Ragtime_**

* * *

In the ever-busy Universal Space Port on Terra, Nicholas Wilde sits on a smooth pleather couch in the lobby as mammals, aliens, and extra-terrestrials - and their families - scuttle across the sleek marble floors past him in flurries. Syncopated bebop jazz resounds over the PA systems, littered with various multilingual announcements that a shuttle is about to take off from Dock 5B or that a guest, whose name is mispronounced, needs to come to the nearest Information Desk.

Nick pulls out a box of lung cancer sticks from his vest pocket and flicks the box into his palm until a single cigarette wedges out. He bites at it and is about to pull out his lighter when he notices a figure step into his periphery.

“Nicholas Wilde?” a firm female voice exclaims. Nick looks to the side to see an Inter Stellar Police Department officer, a lieutenant – he figures – based on the uniform. He eyes her up and down as he lights his cigarette.

Nick chuckles, “Never seen a bunny cop before.” Inhaling, he prepares to pull out the cig from his lips and blow smoke right into the adorable rabbit’s face. But she clasps his lips together before he can.

“Don’t even think about it,” she seethes while glaring at him.

He coughs and smoke seeps out through his clinched lips.

With one hand still clamping his mouth shut, Lt. Judy Hopps uses the other to open and read from a thin top-of-the-line government-licensed tablet that projects his insanely long rap sheet. Sternly, she asserts, “Nicholas Wilde, you are under arrest for desertion, smuggling across planetary borders, destruction of Inter-Stellar Government property, illegal tampering with solar ship machinery, association with the Syndicate, and felony tax evasion.”

She releases his mouth but steals the cigarette. Maintaining eye contact, she throws down the nicotine-roll onto the ground and stamps it out.

“Does that sound about right?” she asks. Then smiles at him cheekily.

He coughs out the last bit of smoke then smiles back. “You forgot about exposing women to my devilishly good looks,” he slurs promiscuously, hoping to get a rise out of her.

But her smirk just turns sultry and she chuckles, “Mmm, yes, we ought to lock you up for life for that.”

Now, _this_ completely catches him off guard and Nick feels his cheeks burn. He chortles awkwardly, “Heh,”

Then she cuffs his left wrist. Then attaches the other fetter to her right.

At realizing what she had just done, Nick panics. “Wait. No, this… Officer….ma’am? I’ll follow you. This is totally unnecessary.”

Judy ignores him and rambles on, “You have a history of slithering out of detainment so Commissioner Bogo issued very particular protocol when handling you so I suggest-,”

“Look, Carrots, this is-OW!”

Nick arduously stares down at his foot, where Judy was digging her heel into. He grunts out, “That. Ugh. Was **_totally_** unnecessary.”

“Do **_not_** call me Carrots. I recommend you stay _in line_ , Wilde,” she orders as she jerks her wrist – and therefore, his body, down.

He stumbles and flails about and groans as a crowd starts forming around them.

“You are _literally_ messing everything up,” he growls.

Judy cocks a brow, grimaces and opens her mouth to retort when BOOM.

The rabbit lieutenant swerves around, accidentally tugging Nicholas back down again just as he hoisted himself up. Civilians rush past them as they scream for their lives as small bits debris from the explosion collapse into the lobby.

Judy glares at Nicholas, who decided to lie down on the ground in a dejected heap and allow life and all the scared citizens trample him to death.

“Is this your doing?”

Nick sucks at his teeth. “Maybe.”

“I guess we’ll have to add terrorism to your rap sheet, Slick Nick,” Judy growls as she hoists him back up.

“Ugh, no one has ever called me that since the eighth grade,” he scoffs as she unceremoniously drags him towards the site of the explosion, going against the tide of the running mob. But then a large insect creature barrages into her and she loses her footing.

As Judy slips and is about to fall face-first into the ground, Nick takes immediate advantage. He scoops her up with his cuffed arm right before her cheek hits the floor and starts bolting to the left.

“Put me down!” Judy orders as Nick dashes to and fro, ducks and jumps his way past obstacles and personnel running for their lives.

“I’d be more than happy to do so, darling,” Nick shouts over the general chaos of evacuation and beelines towards a service door. He twirls a device the shape of a screwdriver out from his belt and jams it into control panel to the side. It sparks and the door slides open.

“But daddy’s got to get somewhere and oomph-!” Judy elbows him in the gut and as soon as she gets leverage, she uses both feet to kick him squarely in the small of his back. They both skid into the cool linoleum floor.

“Who’s your daddy now, jerk,” she seethes as they both pick themselves off the floor and she reaches for her gun.

As she pulls it out of the holster, Nick wrenches his left paw so that the length-changing links between the cuffs pull her down and her gun tumbles out of her paws and slides across the floor. He reaches for it and she yanks him back.

“I do **NOT** have time for this,” Nick growls, as they engage in a brief tug of war.

“Well, you’re gonna have to make time because I am bringing you in,” Judy snaps as she struggles to pull her wrist and her prisoner towards her.

“That’s what you think, gorgeous,” Nick laughs and lunges at her. The sudden release of tension forces Judy to fall backwards and again, Nick swoops in and scoops her up with his left arm before she falls to the ground. Instantly, he dashes off, quickly grabbing her strewn gun with his right paw as he barrels down the corridor.

“PUT ME DOWN!” Judy insists as she writhes about in the cradle of his elbow.

“Give me the key to the cuffs and we’ll see what I can do,” Nick quips as he heaves, “God, I need to work on my cardio.” He bounds around a corner while arduously huffing and puffing.

Then another bang.

Judy swerves her attention to the window and sees an area of the wing of the Space Port across from them erupt in flames.

“What the hell?!” she shouts at him. “ _Another_ bomb?”

“Relax,” he huffs as he continues to run. “It’s just a little one. It won’t do any structural damage and we made sure to clear the area of life-forms. Couldn’t do that for the last one, though, since, _you know_ , a certain bunny cop had to ruin that detail.”

“What?”

“Did you really think it would be that easy for me to get caught?” he laughs at her. “Oh, here it is,” he chirps as he slows at a bank of escape pods.

“What do you mean? And don’t even try to think about escaping.”

“ _Right_ ,” he slurs in a jeering tone. “Because _you’re_ going to stop me.”

“I will if you would just PUT ME DOWN.” She starts flailing her arms again and attempts another go at elbowing his gut but he drops her.

Her face finally gets its fated meeting with the floor and she grunts in pain.

“As you wish, princess,” he laughs. He takes out a USB and sticks it into a port on the entrance panel to one of the pods. The computer screen explodes in a flurry of flashes and lines of code, then sounds out a satisfying ding. The hydraulics cough and whine and the door shifts open with a release of smoke.

Judy readies herself to jump up and tackle him but Nick points her gun at her and cocks it. Its barrel settles right between her large, surprised, and vibrantly purple eyes.

Nick is an instant fan of the shade (and the utter disdain they show towards him). _The rabbit’s got moxie_ , he’ll give her that.

“Ummm, don’t think so,” he sings. “I really don’t want to shoot you, Carrots, but-“

She unleashes a battle cry, peeved by the nickname, and lunges at his torso and they both somersault backwards into the escape pod. The doors close shut as they begin wrestling and clawing at each other.

“DON’T.”

She punches his shoulder.

“CALL.”

He flings her off and she quickly calibrates the cuffs to elongate, repositions her body so that she bounds off the wall and leaps back right at him.

“ME.”

She pushes him into the side of the small space-craft.

“CARROTS!”

He recovers and attempts an uppercut. She dodges.

Then the escape pod rumbles and groans.

The two mammals stop and notice that the LAUNCH button is blinking right where the lieutenant had shoved the smuggler.

They both groan as the pod ejects into the stratosphere with a thundering roar.

“Why is it going up?” the officer asks emphatically as she rushes to the window and watches clouds blast past them. “Planetary Space Ports have their escape pods go to the ground or the nearest body of water…why is it going into space?”

“Oh, _I don’t know_ ,” Nick sneers, “Maybe because I fucking made it go into space? You just _had_ to ruin everything, huh, Leftie?

Judy is about to shout her retort when she blinks and asks, “Leftie?

“Lieutenant – _Leftenent_ – Leftie.”

“I think you better stop with the nicknames, _Wilde_ , before I have to resort to being physical with you again.”

Nick chuckles, “Bring it on.” He pulls out his pack of cigs and lights another one. “I love the kind of woman who can kick my ass.” He takes a drag.

Judy’s fur bristles in frustration but her cheeks twinge with an unmistakable burn. “Don’t smoke in here and turn this back around.”

“So many orders…” Nick sighs, gesturing out dramatically. “Besides, can’t,”

“And why not?”

“It’s an escape pod. It’s not an actual craft. It has two possible destinations – one,” he lifts a single claw into the air. “To the nearest body of water, like you mentioned, or, _two_ ,” He lifts a second. “To the nearest satellite port in case of planetary collapse or some other large-scale disaster. You can’t actually steer the thing. I’m surprised you actually don’t know that, Lef… ”

Nick slows his speech as he eyes the gun that Judy had surreptitiously taken back and now aims right at his muzzle.

He laughs awkwardly. “Now, that might not be very smart since this tin-can’ll be able to sustain ascension into space but I guarantee you that it won’t take an internal gunshot very well. And I really can’t call you Leftie?”

“No.”

“Carrots it is, then,”

“You attacked a ranking officer, Mr. Wilde,” Judy articulates as she re-holsters the gun and taps the controls on her cuff to shrink the link between them to a length of fourteen inches. “You have very little luck as is, I suggest you use whatever you have left as _wisely_ as you can.”

“Acting out of wisdom really isn’t my thing.”

“Noticed.”

“Eh,” he shrugs, “But being impulsive isn’t all that bad since I usually get the upper hand.”

“Do you now?” Judy retorts, eyeing out and down the window to see the earth distancing itself further and further.

“Well, yeah, considering that I was able to swipe this,” Nick chuckles as he lifts up the key to their cuffs.

She gasps and jumps for it and they tangle for a bit again, grunting, scraping and struggling. Judy pins him to the wall.

“Why do you guys still use cuffs that need physical keys? They’re all programmable anyways,” he coughs out, pushing against her grip on his neck.

“Because they can be hacked otherwise,” Judy explains and cries out when he pushes her back and finally pins her beneath him.

“Now I’m liking these odds,” Nick mutters out, his cigarette, still clenched in between his teeth, rustling like a leaf with every softened syllable.

“Don’t get used to them,” Judy sallies back and shoves that cigarette right into his face.

Nick jumps up and grabs the cigarette while angrily grumbling and swatting at his muzzle.

“Alright,” he growls as he throws it into the trash chute, bangs the air lock panel for the chute door so that it slams shut, and starts barking, “Now, look here, sweetheart-.” He trails off when he notices her expression of absolute dread. He glances at his cuffed paw to see his cigarette still smoking between his claws. Then he looks at the trash chute.

Then he inches back to look through the window.

Both of them watch in horror as the key to their handcuffs glistens and floats out into the black abyss of space. 

“Well, shit.”


	2. Don’t Get Down; It’s Only Downtown Dixieland

**Chapter 2: _Don’t Get Down; It’s_ _Only Downtown Dixieland_ **  

* * *

In the dark nothingness of the Terran thermosphere, a large hefty vessel of worn-down metal and old-fashioned thrusters idles about on the edge to space, avoiding Border Control Satellites as best they could.

The vessel eventually intercepts and swallows the small escape pod that houses our favorite fox-bunny duo. As the pod drifts into the hangar, two large robotic limbs descend out from the walls of the bulky and slightly decrepit spacecraft and trap the pod in a melodious barrage of clanging and clunking.

A honey badger in a torn jean vest and GS-21 Assault Rifle strapped to her back opens the door to the pod and it steams and cranks open.

“Nicky!” the badger yelps happily, thrusting her arms in the air, as soon as she sees the slightly disheveled fox, who smiles bright back.

“Honey!” Nick beams through his lassitude as he steps out of the pod.

“Oh, you got something attached to yer paw there,” Honey comments, after noticing the handcuffs and the frustrated rabbit they fasten him to.

“Yep, it’s kinda annoying. Think you could do something about it? Ooh, got a flamethrower handy?”

Judy rages, “ _It_?! Flamethrower?! I am an ISPD Officer, you-,”

Nick actively ignores her by whistling and dragging her out into the hangar. “Honey, is Finn steering?”

“Yep, he’s still on deck. Can I have this now?” she shouts back, greedily eyeing the wealth of new tech available on the pod for her to take apart and reconfigure.

“All yours,” he sings back and starts walking through the narrow hallways of the ship, pulling a begrudging Inter Stellar Police Lieutenant behind him, like an unwilling corgi on a leash.

“Do _not_ get the wrong idea. You’re still my prisoner,” Judy shouts when they arrive at an open warehouse-esque part of the ship, which Judy assumes is the deck.

Nick swerves around to face her, with that smug smile of his. “Yet, you’re the one handcuffed to _me,_ on _my_ ship. I don’t think you get to make any more calls, Carrots.” Then he whirls back and barks towards an elevated mass of computers and controls that made up the helm.

“Finn!”

A large mechanical chair at the helm swerves around and a small Fennec fox, who was too small for the chair, harps angrily back, “What?”

“You got anything to saw this off?” Finn shouts up at him while holding up his left arm to display the handcuffs.

Small, gruff Finnick takes one sharp look at the manacles that fastened the two mammals together and spits, “Pssh, _no_ ,” and he slaps a button on the armrest to swerve him back around.

Judy huffs, “It’s industrial grade bio-synthetic metal – the stuff literally _grows_ back. Without the key – which **_you_** threw into the deep chasm of frigging space, you and I are virtually stuck together.”

“Lovely,” Nick groans. “So how do you feel about losing your right paw?

“I feel very strongly _against_ it.”

“Figures,” Nick sighs, “Then _welcome,”_ he warbles as he bows dramatically. “Lieutenant Carrots, to the Cherry Spiegel, finest hunk of junk to cross the starry skies, your temporary new home.” He gestures broadly to the shabby and rusting innards of the spaceship.

Judy takes a cursory glance and sneers, “Finest _stolen_ hunk of junk, I bet.”

“Well, you’re not wrong. But you’re not right either. Still, it’s going to be the ship you’ll be camping out on until we get this thing off.”

“Or,” Judy puts her paws on her hips, the cuff and the chain lightly clanging about, and sasses, “We get dropped off at the nearest ISP precinct, get a replacement key, and you go to jail.”

Nick just stares blankly at her, as if he didn’t register what she said. Then he smirks and says, “Looks like introductions are in order since you’re going to be a temporary crewmate because I’m not going back to jail and one of us will probably die soon so-,”

“What the heck?!” Judy mutters out as Nick continues to garble out nonsensically eerie phrases.

“He does that,” Finnick explains loudly from his seat as he prepares the ship to enter hyper-drive. “Gets into this weird zone.” He peeks out from behind the back of the chair and makes some weird gestures around his head, which makes Judy frown – just slightly.

“Only when someone mentions jail,” Nick articulates in forced joviality, apparently snapping out of it. “That’s Finn, by the way,” he tells Judy, who frowns at him. “He drives, swears, and makes a mean strawberry soufflé.”

“Fuck off, Nick,”

“See?” the red fox quips triumphantly as he leads her down some stairs to an area that attempted to mimic a living room – with a worn purple-grey couch, its matching loveseat, and a coffee table – each being shabbier than the other.

Off to the side, Judy just notices, is a sloth slowly typing away at a computer while his hind legs hang off a rope tied to the railing and to a random pipe a good seven meters to the side.

“That’s Flash,” Nick explains. “Fastest coder in the solar system – he might be able to help us out.”

“I _highly_ doubt that,” Judy retorts suspiciously, eyeing the sloth and foreseeing a long and frustrating journey ahead.

“Flash, Flash, Hundred-yard dash,” Nick chirpily mutters as he does a little dance with his arms and again, lifts up the cuffs for display. “Could you hack this?”

“Hey,” Flash Slothmore, who slowly takes notice of Nick’s presence and gradually turns away from his computer, articulates. “…Nick…”

Nick and Judy wait.

“How…”

Nick smiles and Judy purses her lips.

“Did…”

“You got to be kidding me,” Judy mutters under breath.

“The…loga…rithm...”

Judy grunts in impatience.

“Hang in there,” Nick laughs at her.

“Work…for…”

Judy buries her face into her free paw.

“The…escape…”

“Pod?” Nick finishes for him, “It worked great, obviously, since I’m here and not choking out in space. But anyways, do you think you can hack this?”

“Oh…” Flash turns slowly to scrutinize the handcuffs and then Judy. “…who’s…that?”

“An ISPD officer who nearly ruined everything – can you hack her cuffs?”

“Probably…” Flash utters.

“Cool, then get-,”

“…Not…” Flash continues. “It’s…bio…synthetic…too…many…fail-safes…even…for me…”

“Yeah, thanks anyway, buddy,” Nick verbally shrugs and Judy thanks the heavens that the conversation has finally ended. But Nick wasn’t going to let that happen. He asks Flash, “But we got what we needed from the TST right?”

“…Yep…”

Judy circles her head in the air and groans explicitly before slamming her forehead into her palms.

“…We’re…”

Judy feels as though she is about to sob.

“Patched…”

Nick grins delightedly at her who glares death and ice back. “I hate you,” she whispers to him.

“In…”

Nick returns his smile to Flash. “Cool. Make sure to notify us if ISPD ever gets a ping on this rabbit’s location.”

Flash leisurely lifts a thumbs-up in acknowledgement.

Judy’s eyes widen as things click together in her mind. “Is that what the bombs were for? Distractions for you to get into the ISPD data frame?” she hurriedly asks him while catching up to Nick as he struts a few feet and plops down onto the couch.

“Heh, not so much of a dumb bunny, after all,” Nick chuckles as he slouches further into the musty cushions. “You got to admit, the ISPD makes it real easy to take advantage of them.”

“Me letting you get away with saying certain insults is not me allowing you to take advantage of me,” Judy seethes.

“So defensive,” Nick chortles. “But I was actually referring to how silly it is to have a precinct stationed at an universal space port – so many people coming and going. You never know what’s going to happen.”

Nick strokes his muzzle and ruminates for a bit, wondering if he forgot something, then a large blue animate blob with two eyes slimes and slushes over to Nick and purrs at his ankles. Judy winces at the sight of it but Nick beams at the creature, bends over, and hoists her up onto the couch. “This is Mercurie – named after-,”

“Mercury?” Judy rolls her eyes.

“Madam Marie Curie,” Nick devilishly bites back. “Back in the hangar was the former Dr. Madge Honey Badger, everyone just calls her Honey, though. She handles mech, weapons, medicine…Jack of all Trades, really,” He rests an ankle over a knee and looks off to the side, returning to stroking his chin. He hums in contemplation for a bit then mutters, “Now, I’m forgetting something…oh right,” he glances at Judy and blankly states, “Strip.”

Judy flinches. “Excuse me?”

“Strip – I need to see whether you have a tracker on you or not.”

“I lost my tablet during the ruckus back on Terra, you can’t just –.” He stands up. She backs away. “This is a Code 4 Violation…”

“Is it because I’m male? Do you want Honey to search you-,”

“No, it’s because this is absolutely ridiculous…I…”

But Nick Wilde rarely takes no for an answer.

Five minutes later, Lt. Hopps’ com-link lies atop of the coffee table in smashed shambles, while Judy and Nick sit on the couch – the former looking sheepish and frustrated, now dressed in an obnoxiously yellow and oversized collared shirt, and the latter looking smug and undeservedly victorious.

Honey, meanwhile, kneels on the ground and hums as she pokes and prods the cuffs with small and precise tools, clicking around the mechanisms of the cuffs and occasionally shocking everyone every other minute.

After one final spark, Judy begs her to stop.

“Yep, you’re going to need the right key for this,” Honey mutters while examining the handcuffs, “When we hit Mars, we can get a similar key then I could probably get Flash to figure out the CI number so I can configure this to unlock your guys’ red string of fate.” Honey chuckles to herself.

“Pardon?” Judy asks, unsure about how she feels about absolutely everything going on around her, especially when the conversation in question concerns how easily (or how hard) ISPD handcuffs could be unclasped without a key.

“Red string of fate – it’s a Han thing. I forget which one specifically – might have been all three – but like, they believed that two fated people were connected by a red string of fate – but I guess for you guys, it’s a pair of black, slightly alive handcuffs.”

“I like to keep things kinky,” Nick quips.

Honey guffaws and Judy just buries her face into her left paw.

“I just want to go home.”

* * *

Without use of the Bridges, a galactic trip from Terra to Mars takes three days with a solid modern ship housing a maintained and up-to-date hyperdrive. The Cherry Spiegel is anything but.

Additionally, since the crew is made up of individuals who probably should be in jail, the use of the Bridges is out of the question due to the strict inspection checks required to even dock near the large galactic slingshots.

Therefore, on her second day on the Cherry Spiegel, Judy foresees the trip to Mars taking a good 10 days, if the Spiegel could handle a million kilometers per hour, which is should. Possibly. Hopefully.

“Finn could probably do it in nine days,” Nick offers to Judy suddenly.

“What?”

“You were talking out loud.” He smiles mischievously at her, with a secret hint of warmth in his eyes, but it was mostly mischievousness.

She sticks her tongue out at him.

They were both sprawled out in Nick’s room, utilizing the four feet extension of their handcuffs as much as they could – with Judy reading Honey’s copy of _The Art of War_ on Nick’s futon while he slouches in a beanbag, playing an antique hand-held gaming console.

He had turned the volume up so that the beeps and 8-bit music would annoy her.

It did.

That was the majority of Day 2.

Sometime during Day 3, Judy and Nick had gotten into another argument and were wrestling around on the deck. Finn bitch-slapped the both of them to make them stop. Honey made some stir-fry.

Day 4, Judy caught Nick peeping on her while she was taking a shower and gave him a warranted black eye. Honey made an make-shift eye-mask that he couldn’t take off on his own so that it wouldn’t happen again, despite his insistence that he was just trying to get his toothbrush and that it was unnecessary.

Finn made a beetle and eucalypts leaf salad and his strawberry soufflé. Judy never tasted anything so good in her life. Finn decided that Judy was alright after her long bout of raving compliments.

Day 5, Honey taught Judy how to play Go-Stop Poker and it took four rounds for Judy to finally beat Nick. Nick found boxes of cup ramen and claimed that those counted for his turn to cook.

Day 6, Judy taught him how to boil water and make pasta. He was very proud of himself.

Day 7, the Cherry Spiegel hit an asteroid field.

* * *

The whole ship shakes and rumbles as space debris pummel against its fragile hull.

“Honey, there’s a breach near the main thruster!” Finn barks as he struggles in manually navigating the ship to serpentine through the dangerous littering of space rocks.

“Right,” Honey shouts and rushes off with her toolbox.

“Aw, shit, NICK!”

“What?!” Nick shouts back as he’s hanging onto the railing to the stairs leading into the deck. The ship suddenly barrages to the side and Judy slips and yelps until Nick grabs her and brings her in between himself and the railing, in the safety between his arms.

“Engine’s overheating,” Finn informs them. “You gotta take care of it if we want to get out of this alive.”

Nick and Judy glance at each other then when the ship returns to a slightly normal tilt, they dash off together. Now used to accommodating the fetters that bind them together and to each other, Nick takes smaller steps while Judy takes larger ones – as they both barrel across the floors of grate and machinery.

The two quickly arrive at the chamber of the reactor core and enter the steam-filled room, instantly feeling the intense surge of heat emanating and accruing. Nick takes one look and swears in various languages.

“Great. Just great. This is just -,”

“I can fix it,” Judy suddenly cries.

“What?”

“I can fix it,” she repeats, her voice and eyes bursting with insistence.

Nick furrows his brows. “Hopps, I know you think you can do or try everything but this is a mono-lithium core – they don’t make these anymore and-,”

“I grew up on a produce farm. I **_had_** to know how to work heavy machinery with mono-lithium cores since I was five,” she retorts loudly back at him. “Honey’s going around putting out fires. And you need Finn at the helm to see if anything else is damaged. And you’re just a conman, Nick, you’re not a technician.”

He’s about to object when Judy grabs him by the collar and forces him down to her eye-level.

“Let. Me. Fix. It.”

Nick lifts his arms up in defense and defeat. “Fine,” he shouts over the sound of the dying engine.

Judy immediately elongates the handcuffs, swipes the screwdriver lying on the ground and crawls underneath the machine core.

“Oh, gross,” Nick hears Judy groan from the bowels of the ship. “No wonder, you have so many things backed up,” she coughs out when she reappears. “Your entire undercarriage is rusting and the main fluid pipe is all junked up. It’s _been_ overheating and now it’s going crazy. When have you guys ever replaced anything down here?”

“I don’t know,” Nick shrugs. “Honey usually takes care of it and whatever money we do manage to scrounge up goes straight into our mouths.”

“That pipe that Flash’s hammock hangs off of isn’t that important, right?” Judy asks, trying to hide the glint in her eyes as she rubs oil off her paws onto Nick’s shirt.

He scowls at the mess she made, “Come on, Carrots,”

“I’m serious, I need a small section of pipe or at least a rubber tube, an EV, wrenches, valves or rubber bands? I don’t know, we’ll just have to make do with what’s on the ship but this needs to be fixed or else the whole thing is going to blow.”

“Kay,” Nick says seriously, for once in his life, “We’ll swing by the hangar to see what Honey has and then go to the deck for whatever else we need, then the kitchen, then back here.“

“Why the kitchen?”

“I’m hungry.”

* * *

Throughout the hustle and bustle and general chaos, Flash writes an email to his long-distance girlfriend. He manages to type out:

> _Hey, Priscill_

Then another asteroid hits, the ship shakes, and his monitor turns black.

“…Oh…”

Nick and Judy scurry in behind him and tear a pipe from the wall and Judy swipes the addendums on the battery pack of his computer.

“Sorry, Flash, need these,” the rabbit shouts at him as she stuffs the parts into her pockets.

The two handcuffed mammals whisk away.

“…dear…”

* * *

Nick feels particularly useless as he watches Judy struggle with fixing the cooling system – her back on the ground, a flathead in her teeth, oil all in her fur, concentration in her brow.

It probably didn’t help that he lazily masticates at a sandwich as he watches her.

She extends her paw and calls out, “Valve!”

He – the only calm thing in the room full of shaking and grumbling equipment - reaches out picks up what he assumes is what she needs and places it in her hand. Then he realizes that uselessness was not the only thing festering in the typically cynical place in his chest.

“I’d rather not go there,” he mumbles to himself as he finishes off his sandwich.

He hears her wrench something in place.

“And that should do it!” Judy exclaims happily, edging out from underneath the engine, which now hums instead of rumbling like an ocean storm, and proudly places her hands on her hips.

Nick slow-claps with quiet approval. “You never cease to impress me, Leftie Hopps,” he smirks roguishly at her as she smirks back.

“That is because I am always impressive, Mr. Wilde.”

“That’s Captain Wilde to you, Lieutenant,” he retorts haughtily as she dusts herself off. “You know I was actually an ISP officer before, oversaw Vice at one point.”

“I know,” she scoffs back and shrinks back the links. “You used to work on a Nerf ranch too,” she chortles.

“Wow…” Nick articulates, “You memorized my whole file, haven’t you, Carrots?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, cowboy,” she quips while thinning her gaze at him. “Now, I am in desperate need of a shower. And a new shirt.” She stretches out the ragged one Nick had lent her to inspect the numerous stains. “I’m assuming you have more of the ugly brightly colored variety?”

“Ha. Ha. I have excellent taste in clothes,” he grumbles back. “I just choose not to give them to you.”

“ _Right_ ,” Judy sings out facetiously.

* * *

 

They eventually return the deck, where they find Finn embedded into the couch and moaning about he hates space.

“So we’re all good?” Nick asks, not without chuckling at his fellow fox.

“Yep, thank God your girlfriend is more competent than you are,” Honey jovially comments, popping out from behind them and slapping both of their backs hard enough to make them cough and grimace. “Good work there, Judes,” the badger grins widely.

Judy smiles back, “Thanks, Honey,”

“That wounds me, Honey Badger,” Nick weeps in offense, grappling his chest with his free paw. “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Whatever you say,” she laughs and bounds down the steps to help the slightly distraught Flash with his computer.

“Cool, then Leftie’s taking the shower, that alright?” Nick announces to the crew and Judy purses her lips in slight embarrassment.

The other mammals give an indication of consent – Honey chirps out a “That’s alright with me,” in her typical drawl, Finn just grunts, and Flash is about to mutter out a “Sure,” when Nick and Judy head out.

When they reach his quarters, Judy pulls him to where she had placed her folded uniform. “Will you still - _at least_ – give me the dignity of putting on my own clothes?”

“Only if you won’t put that stupid blindfold thing on me.”

“Only if you promise not to move a single inch.”

“There isn’t anything to peek on anyway,”

She playfully punches him in the shoulder and reaches for her clothes.

“Wait, you’re all gross. I’ll hold them for you,” Nick suggests, already grabbing her uniform.

“Wow, so there is a gentle-mammal in you, after all,” Judy remarks sassily.

“I called you gross, Carrots,” Nick snaps back and beckons her out into the hallway again.

“But you’re carrying my stuff for me,” she warbles in a jokingly girly manner.

Their footsteps against the grating echo through the empty halls.

“Well, someone mentioned something about dignity so whatever,”

“Great comeback, Nick.”

“Whatever.”

They enter the ship water closet – which is, literally, a small room the size of a closet where all the water in the ship originates and circulates. Judy elongates the cuffs and points to the floor right outside the shower stall.

“Now you’re going to sit here and not move a single muscle, right?”

He raises his brows suggestively. “You sure you don’t want me to join you?”

She sends him her no-nonsense glare and kicks his legs so that he plops down onto the ground with a satisfying clang.

“You have to hold my clothes, remember? You perv.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckles back.

She steps into the shower, spreads out the curtain to cover the entire width of the entrance, and begins to undress. She tosses out the dirty shirt underneath the curtain so that it lands right besides the fox.

He sighs, “You know, that was actually one of my favorites.”

“Ew, you really have horrible taste,” Judy laughs as she squeaks the knob on and water starts running.

“The ones who designed this uniform have horrible taste,” he returns, holding up her uniform and sneering in disgust. “I can’t believe I actually used to wear one of these.”

“I can’t believe a lot of the things you used to do, Nick,” Judy mutters as she starts working in shampoo into her fur.

“What can I say, I’m a mammal with many talents.”

“Many secrets is more like it.”

“That too.”

“You really like playing up the whole mysterious cynic gambit, huh?”

“Don’t forget the tragic backstory,” he rejoins.

“Right, can’t forget about the tragic backstory. Let me guess – the woman you loved died in your arms?”

“Yep,” he chortles, “Right when we promised to run away together into the stars beyond.”

“And after you realized she made you feel things you never felt before?”

“Uh-huh,” he fake-sighs arduously, “Oh, my darling Felicia,” Nick histrionically moans into the air, lifting his paws in simulated agony, “How I miss the sensation of thine body grinding upon my own.”

Judy turns off the water, pokes her head out from behind the curtain and glowers. “You’re disgusting.”

Nick smirks back. “I know.”

“Hand me my pants and my tank-top, would you?”

He obliges and as she changes, Nick fiddles about with her uniform jacket. He feels the weight of her badge and unearths it, chuckling at the sight of the symbolic piece of metal in his claws. He figured he would never hold its worn material again. He unclips it and holds it up, allowing its image to thrust him into a bout of reminiscing. Then he turns it over to look at the identification number.

He pauses.

His eyes narrow as he brings the badge closer to his face and he scrutinizes it in confusion.

Judy steps out of the shower pod in her uniform pants and her chest binder while rubbing the towel over her damp fur. She pauses when she catches what he’s doing.

“What are you-,”

“This is my old badge number,” Nick mutters, sternly.

Judy says nothing.

“Why do you have _my_ badge?”

Judy opens her mouth to speak but can only just stare back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GASP! It's a cliffhanger!  
> Because I'm a jerk :D 
> 
> Gosh, writing Flash is actually really annoying though - if you noticed, I kinda gave up at the end. 
> 
> A bit of characterization for Nick and Honey is borrowed from nicolaswildes' Zistopia AU - which, I am sure, everyone has read/seen because it is fantastic! Hopefully they won't mind!

**Author's Note:**

> Don't think too much on the title - I just wanted to be punny.


End file.
